Tuesdays with Dorie—Savory Corn and Pepper Muffins

I love homemade muffins since they satisfy my craving for a snack any time of day. And they're so easy to throw together. Whisk the dry ingredients. Stir the wet ingredients. Mix the two together until combined (but don't overmix) and bake.

Oh, do you know the muffin man,
The muffin man, the muffin man,
Oh, do you know the muffin man,
That lives on Drury Lane?

I was inspired by fellow food blogger at Food Rockz to crack open one of my favorite cookbooks, Michel Richard's Happy in the Kitchen: The Craft of Cooking The Art of Eating, where I found a recipe for Lemon-Lime Madeleine Muffins. Since I have a little-used mini madeleine pan, I thought I'd make Madeleine Muffins using Dorie's recipe. Served alongside some homemade chili, I had the perfect lunch.

Recipe

For me, the recipe made 12 mini madeleines, 12 mini muffins and 8 regular-sized muffins. I baked the minis for half the time stated in the recipe (10 minutes).

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal, stone-ground
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1½ teaspoons chili powder, or more to taste
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup buttermilk
1 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 large egg yolk
¼ cup corn kernels
1 small jalapeño pepper, seeded, deveined and finely diced
¼ red bell pepper, seeded deveined and finely diced
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro
You can find the recipe for Savory Corn and Pepper Muffins in the book Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or here. To see how the rest of the TWD group fared with this week's recipe, click here and then click on each blogger! 

Tasting Notes
These muffins have the perfect combination of spice and heat to go with many main dishes, and can be tweaked to fit many different palates. For more spice, add more chili pepper and jalapeños or take the spice out all together for a more corn muffin flavor. As well, the texture was excellent since it didn't crumble but was moist and cake-like. These muffins would be delicious with scrambled eggs, in a bread bowl at a Super Bowl Party, but we thought they were perfect with chili, which I'll post about soon.

"You don't get tired of muffins, but you don't find inspiration in them."
— George Bernard Shaw, British playwright and critic (although likely referring to English Muffins)

Recipe for Next Week (January 20)
Berry Surprise Cake on pages 273-275 chosen by Mary Ann of Meet Me in the Kitchen.

Some sweet muffin ideas:
• Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
• Pumpkin Muffins